ADL Questions Prize Given by U.S. Black Leaders to Qaddafi

November 2, 1979

LOS ANGELES (Nov. 1)

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith regional office here has asked Dr. Glen Terrell, president of Washington State University (WSU), for an explanation of the reported participation of university staff members in a recent trip of American Black leaders to Tripoli, Libya.

According to information released by the Metro Atlanta chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). the Black studies department of WSU coordinated the recent visit of 18 Black Americans to meet with and present the Martin Luther King Jr. Award to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

David Stahl, ADL’s Pacific Northwest regional director, in a letter to Terrell, wrote, “The trip. which was apparently coordinated by an academic department of a public university, provided one of the most incongruous juxtapositions of ideologies in recent history by connecting the memory of the non-violent Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the tawdry and bloodstained figure of Col. Qaddafi.”

The ADL regional office has asked Terrell to respond to questions regarding the role of a tax-supported institution planning and coordinating dealings with a government which supports and harbors terrorists who are declared enemies of the United States and “our most cherished values.”

In addition, the ADL has inquired as to the extent the university and its staff participated in financing this trip; if university funds were utilized, and whether the participants from WSU represented the university or its Black studies department. The ADL also inquired as to whether Terrell and his administration have disavowed any connection with the SCLC mission and its dealings with Qaddafi, Stahl said.